Horror Movie Review: On Halloween (2020)

Overly long and convoluted, On Halloween attempts to refresh the killer clown subgenre of horror but falls short in many important areas. Written and directed by Timothy Doyle, On Halloween stars Giselle van der Wiel, Aaron J. March, Telen Rodwell, and Terry Serio.

Jordan is woman obsessed with an urban legend surrounding a serial killer clown. However, her obsession hasn’t convinced her boss at the tabloid she works to let her run with her story. A story that Jordan believes links the urban legend to a series of recent murders.

She is convinced that the legend of Boo the Clown is real, and the person the police arrested for the murders is actually innocent.

Against her better judgement, and to the chagrin of her worrying partner, she continues her investigation and discovers that there is more truth to the urban legend then even she knew.

Killer clowns have been done to death, and On Halloween does little to refresh the concept. Even if these particular clowns are nicely menacing, have plenty of wisecracks, and speak in amusing rhyme.

The problem is that is all On Halloween has to offer. The story is not good, and made unnecessarily confusing by taking place in different time periods. For a huge portion of its runtime, you won’t even know this either. Instead, you’re left wondering why so much of the movie’s runtime is dedicated to a police officer trying get on the TV show ‘Undercover Detectives’ and wondering how a group of kids’ battle with Boo ties into the story of Jordan. It turns out, that all of these events are in the past and the movie only makes that clear with some dialogue that comes at around the hour mark!

Not that it really matters, as staying focused up to this point is a massive challenge. On Halloween is dull, ugly to look at, and worst of all, has some pretty horrendous acting. One in particular is so bad, you’ll think it’s a joke. Except the entire movie is played extremely straight. There’s no comedy to be found here, even with clowns involved.

By the time the home stretch of the movie is reached, the film has gone off the deep end in an exhaustive attempt to stand out from the killer clown pack. It fails, and the end result is a strong feeling of wasted time.

If you want some modern clown-based shenanigans, watch something good like Terrifier, and avoid this mess completely.